Can I say "the table was covered by a scatter"? Is it correct?
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closed as not a real question by Jasper Loy, JLG, Mahnax, Jeff Atwood♦ Jun 9 '12 at 7:46
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No, you can't. You have to say something like "the table was covered by a scatter of toys". It's just like "lot". You can say "the table was covered by a lot of junk", but you can't just say "the table was covered by a lot".
Here is some concrete evidence (besides my experience as a native English speaker) for this: the example phrases in two dictionaries.
And here are the first Google hits for "covered by a scatter" (where "scatter" is not an adjective):